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Friday, August 31, 2007

Catholic Culture: Have the Laity been Clericalized?

This is a copy of an email I receive from Jeff Mirus of Catholic Culture - a wonderful website with a wealth of documents, articles, and even Catholic website reviews. Those reviews, which result in a red, yellow or green status, are spot on. They do not give that red status to websites without good reason, such as containing content that is not in accord with Church teaching. Some websites, as you know, have content which is way off base and in our poorly catechized era, it is helpful to look at the specific issues they highlight in such cases.

Jeff notifies us about his column which is up and talks a little about that in his introductory letter. Follow the links accordingly.

Have the Laity Been Clericalized?

I noted with considerable interest the Symposium on Lay Ecclesial Ministry held this month at St. John's College in Minnesota. A featured speaker called the increase in lay ministry one of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of the Church.

Now I'm always on the lookout for the latest paradigm shift, especially when the shift is attributed to Vatican II. So I returned to the documents to read the shift's blueprint, so to speak. But the blueprint and the shift were different.

I've posted my column a day early because I have to be out of the office tomorrow. But there are a couple of other items well worth noting. For example, we've just added a speech by Bishop Fabien Bruskewitz of Lincoln on The Development of Doctrine. If you've ever wondered why Bruskewitz is so heartily disliked by Modernists, this will make it very clear.

And I can't resist alerting those of you with small children to a very entertaining web site for Catholic kids called Cat.Chat. Not a bad thing to file away, perhaps, on the long weekend of Summer's last gasp.

Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron

St. John of the Cross

Dark Night of the Soul (2.2:3)...

"...the devil causes many to believe in vain visionsand false prophecies; and strives to make them presumethat God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."